


Frozen

by cRain



Category: Frozen (2013), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Crossover, Disney Movies, Family, Gen, Skysolo If You Squint, The Force Doesn't Work Like That
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-23 22:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6132429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cRain/pseuds/cRain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, When Disney's Two Biggest Cash-Grabbing Franchises Collide. The newly elected Monarch of Naboo drops a bombshell at her coronation ceremony and it's up to her sheltered sibling to bring her back to society.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Force manifests itself in so many ways; it is born of the very energy that pulses through all things, from the celestial to the mundane. Energy cannot be created or destroyed; only harnessed. The energy of the Force is unique – this capacity to harness its strength relies not on the technology or the wealth of the individual, but on an ability that comes from within.

Only by cutting to the core of one’s love and fears can one truly hold dominion over this energy; and, as seductive as this unlocked power is, most who are sensitive to it find it best to ignore its pull. Beautiful, powerful, dangerous, cold – the strength of a hundred men at the fingertips of those attuned to this energy.

Those with developed skills can display feats of strength and fortitude; many attain telekinetic skills. They can detect an empathetic map of those around them. Some can manipulate energy itself through its properties of warmth and cold.

The capacity of the Force can make for warriors of renowned skill and glory, yet many peaceful and wise remain purposefully deaf to the buzzings of the Force, for only the most well-trained and sincere use it safely. Even to them, the call of the void beckons them, and the constant dull ring of a thousand lives existing out their periphery can be maddening. As the ice on a freezing pond connects in a spreading matrix, the Force-sensitive person begins to reach out with delicate tendrils but can soon find himself locked; frozen; lost to himself.

In awe of these risks, Anakin shut himself off from the tantalizing draw of the Force. For the sake of this new wife, the Queen Amidala of Naboo, and for the sake of the twin heirs born to them, on a breezy day in May. He’d come too close to the precipice before, and from now on he couldn’t allow himself to feel it.

 

* * *

 

“Leia. Psst. Leia! Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

The eight-year-old prince shook his sister roughly, rousing her from her sleep.

“Luke, it’s not even daylight yet.” She groaned, disappointed by how quickly alertness came to her. “Go to bed.”

“No, Leia, listen, look,” the boy said, crawling onto the edge of her mattress. He proceeded in a giddy whisper: “That little white droid! I got it working!”

“Luke!” Leia hissed, “Mother and Father said we can’t mess with that thing without supervision! You could have… blown it up!”

“But it’s beeping and stuff! We almost got it right yesterday, and when I woke up earlier this morning,”

Leia interrupted with a groan “ _Earlier?”_

“Yes! I couldn’t stop thinking. I couldn’t lie down anymore!”

Reluctantly, Leia positioned herself upright in bed. It wasn’t likely that her brother would leave her alone until he’d spilled all his discoveries on the little R2 unit.

“I took the cap off of it, and guess what! We didn’t take that, little plastic tab thingy off! So I snapped it off, and uh, it works now! It made whirring noises, like bzz noises!” he imitated the buzz of a cog or a tread.

“Bzz?” she echoed “That doesn’t sound like a good thing. Luke! You definitely broke it. I’m going to tell.” The energy dissipated in her voice as she wriggled back into her sheets. “Well, I’m gonna tell, in the morning.”

“No, no, no, no,” Luke pulled the blankets off of her, causing her to clench from the sudden cold. “Come look. You’re awake anyway. We can play with it and it will be fine, I’m sure! Just come on, please?”

Leia groaned. It was probably a bad idea to acquiesce to the early rising of her brother, but she couldn’t deny the rousing of the droid, whose assembly had stymied them since they first took on the activity, piqued her curiosity. And besides, if Luke did in fact break the thing, it would be in her best interests to be an eyewitness to his carnage so that she could be absolved of scolding. She slid out of bed and followed her twin down the staircase, to the great hall.

The pair hurried to the centre of the spacious room, where the droid was pacing in circles and beeping like a robotic lunatic.

“Luke, it’s going crazy! You wrecked the poor thing, for sure!” Leia exclaimed. Yet as soon as the two approached the stout robot it slowed its whirring roll and turned towards them. Its beeps calmed, and a flash of intelligence ignited in its single glossy ocular port.

“Nuh uh, it’s fine! Check this out. R2 unit, uh,”

“Are you going to ask it to sit? It isn’t a pet, you know.”

“R2 unit, do you have a saw, please?”  The droid produced a short blade from one of its numerous retractable compartments. “See!” Luke said, voice high with excitement. “Now stand still. Look. It will scan us. Then it will know who we are from now on!”

Leia cracked a smile. He didn’t bust the droid, after all. As disappointed as she was that she couldn’t be involved in the final touches of the droid’s assembly, she felt an undercurrent of excitement as she considered the potential fun that could come with a new unit in the palace.

“Wow, look,” exclaimed Luke, “It’s got a holorecorder. You wanna make a movie?”

Leia snickered. “What kind of movie?”

“Let’s do the magic!”  

Leia’s face brightened briefly, and became blank as she closed her eyes. Luke felt the slightest tingle wash over his skin – nothing had really changed in the environment, yet his physiology reacted.

Leia parted her hands, and a small glittering flurry appeared between her palms. Luke could feel a pulse of warmth emanate from her – the heat her powers stole from the moisture in the air was sent outwards in a cloud. She tossed the sparkling puff of moisture above her head, where it splintered and rained tiny snowflakes onto her and Luke.

“Why are you so amazing at this, Leia?” Luke said, beaming at the spontaneous flurry.

“You just have to practice, and focus, and feel it! It’s just,” she grasped for words, “A feeling. You follow it, and pull it. Like a loose string. You need to focus.”

Luke frowned. “Focusing is not something I’m really good at.”

Leia smirked, “Well if you focused long enough to fix the droid, I’m sure you can at least try to find the magic. Watch!” She stamped a heel into the floor, and a slim sheen of ice appeared.

Luke scrambled to turn on the recorder on the R2 unit, skidding a bit on the glazing of frost. “Okay, okay, lemme try.” He closed his eyes. “What do I think about? Do I need to keep my eyes shut?”

“I don’t think, but it’s easier to focus when you do. You won’t look at stuff.”

“Okay.” He took a breath. “What should I try? How do I make the snow? I tried so many times to make the snow! I moved a bottle off my vanity, once. Or maybe it just fell. I’ve gotten alright at moving my stuffed fambaa, I did that a couple times, but not far.”

“You can’t jump right into making the snow,” Leia said, “You need to move the feelings, move the energy, and the snow it’s…if you move the energy out of the air, it gets cold. It’s a trick I learned. I had to practice. Look, just spread out your feelings like a bunch of hair. Pretend you have fur or tentacles to detect things.” 

Luke pictured himself melting away like a snowflake; merging into the colours of the room’s walls. Leia’s voice took on a calming tone. “Open your eyes.”  Leia unraveled a pale blue ribbon from a tress of her braided hair. “Move this ribbon. You can do it, I know you can. The first thing I moved was a ribbon.”

Luke pictured that imaginary puddle that was once him trickling over to the ribbon, as if to soak it. He felt some tenuous mental grip on the item. The nerves that began to well up in him threatened to make him choke and lose his grip. “Don’t get excited or you’ll ruin it. Just be normal, like you’re just picking it up with your hands.”

The limp ribbon began to quiver and rise, squiggling like a charmed snake. The edge of the silk kissed the floor, still: the last instant before defying gravity took an extra nudge of willpower. Once it was freely in the air, Leia’s ribbon rose more easily. Luke restrained an excited giggle, fearing that even cracking a smile would be enough to break his concentration. He made the ribbon swirl, like an eel squiggling through air.

Leia took to laughter when he couldn’t. “I told you!”

The edges of Luke’s mouth began to quiver as he tried to ignore the bubbling desire to feel excited. Leia, noticing his distress, focused on the ribbon, too, and for a moment it felt lighter in Luke’s mind. Then, promptly, a layer of ice enveloped the ribbon like freezer burn, and it fell to the floor, rigid.

“Hey!” Luke exclaimed - not truly perturbed, as he’d intended to shortly drop the item. Leia repeated her trick of the generated snowfall. The R2 unit didn’t always take so well to the slick surface, but the ice was thin enough and the air temperature warm enough that it could bite into it with its treads. Leia created some meagre mounds of snowfall in the corners of the room, and in the sufficiently wintery, the trio began to skid around the room.

She tentatively sent forceful pulses towards her brother, pushing him around the icy floor without any muscular input on his end. He made a game of hopping over the snowy lumps as he approached them, with Leia sending him another nudge to move him forward. At a young age, and untrained as she was, she was not prepared to carry his bodyweight with the Force – nor could she even support his weight with her physical body. But with each experimental jolt, she became more aware of her abilities, and pushed them, until she was sending Luke a lifting thrust at every snow mound.

Elated, Luke quickened his pace, skidding his feet on the ice and racing around the room. A quiet anxiety began to clamp on Leia’s throat. “Luke, don’t go faster, okay?” Her twin zipped around the circuit, and Leia felt herself less able to regulate the strength of her pulses. The command in her mind said ‘stop’, but her uncertainty manifested as a solid wall of energy which sent Luke careening towards a wall.

“How do I stop, how do I stop?” Luke gestured frantically both with his limbs and with his senses to try and slow his pace on the slippery floor.

Leia choked on a feeling of culpability. Stumbling on the icy tiles, she sent another mental command – Freeze! She reached a hand towards her brother, eyes wide in terror as she watched an icy pulse tear through him. He collided with the wall and crumpled on the floor.

Hoisting her nightgown to her knees, she clamoured over to him and collapsed by his side. “Luke!” she gasped, throat closing with the threat of tears. “Mother! Father!”

Their parents, already alerted by the crash that echoed through the wall, were quick to enter the room.

“Leia!” the Queen exclaimed, eyes darting around the room before landing on the sight of her injured son, “What is all this? Where did this snow come from?”

“I didn’t mean to, we were just playing! With the magic!”

“The magic.” Echoed her Father.

Leia was too wrapped in her grief and guilty to notice the icy veneer that had begun to cover every surface in the room, and a hollow rumbling that echoed through the walls.

* * *

 

“I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping it from them. Not explaining the little things they could do.” Anakin said, storming into the library. He smashed a button on the central unit, illuminating a holoscreen.  “If no one had told me about the Force, I’m sure I’d never been able to use it at all. I thought if they didn’t know, it would remain nothing but a little quirk.”

“You had no way of knowing,” Padme soothed, though the fear that strangled her voice limited the soothing effect of her words. “You had no way of knowing they’d even have the sensitivity, let alone this strength.”

“But I should have.” He said, while shuffling slides on the holoscreen.  “I know who can help us. I should have asked him to intervene long ago. Tell C3PO to get a hyperdrive-capacitated ship ready.”

                Luke’s body was colder to the touch with every passing hour, and was dangerously frigid by the time they arrived on Dagobah. As soon as she stepped off the ship, Leia felt a queasy feeling wash over her, giving her goosebumps. It was as if the tendrils she set out to touch the Force were closing back in on her, probing her like a million arachnid legs grazing her skin. The disgust and intrusion she felt were the only things keeping her crushing fear and anxiety at bay.

The Queen and King Consort carried Luke to the door of a gnarled, woody bungalow. The door creaked open to reveal a hobbled, green-skinned goblin of a creature, whose eyes flickered with recognition as the King Consort approached his stoop.

“Anakin.” He said simply, in a sharp, croaking voice. “Strong with the Force, your children are. I see.”

Anakin felt a tiny surge of frustration at the understatement. “She makes ice. I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve never heard of anything like this!”

“From the untrained, great discoveries come. But dangerous these discoveries are.” Leaning heavy on his cane, the trollish creature approached the unconscious child. “Persuaded, the head can be. The heart, not so much.”

Leia cowered behind her mother’s skirt as the gravity of her actions seeped through her.

“It seems stronger in Leia. I don’t know if Luke has the power at all. I haven’t seen him use it, and they’re the exact same age.”

A pair of tiny green hands probed Luke’s forehead. “Best if the child forgets, would it be. Yes. Best if he never learn.” No change, no lights or sounds were produced as the creature pressed his hands on the boy’s head, but Leia could feel a rumble and a buzz deep in her ears. “Live, he will. But the girl,”

Leia stepped forward nervously. The unfamiliar little man approached her.

“Grow, your power will. Great beauty in it, there is, but also danger. To control it, you must learn. Fear, your enemy will be.”

Leia stared horrified at her hands, unwilling to believe that her fun trick she used to entertain her brother could possibly lead down a dangerous path.

“She can learn to control it,” Anakin said sternly. “I did. So can she. We will protect her.”

“We’ll reduce non-droid palace staff,” Padme added, “We’ll limit her contact with people, especially Force users. She will learn.”

* * *

 

The summer waned into early winter, and Luke noticed an unprecedented change in his sister. The stubborn and vibrant girl with whom he’d shared every moment of his life became withdrawn and hardly played with him. They began to take part in their studies separately. She never barely laughed or even smiled. To make matters worse, the boy couldn’t nurse his loneliness by making friends with others, because few others remained. All the palace servants were droids. And if their parents needed to have meetings on political matters, the rest of the council met as far away from the living quarters as they could.

Luke felt as though he were being punished, for he remembered a different life, yet he couldn’t remember the moment where the switch was flipped – however certain he was that this change was rapid. He resigned himself to reading archives, watching holographic films, and discretely climbing on the roof of the palace to watch the sun set over the orange-glittering water. He could never find enough to occupy his mind, for whenever he had a thought or reflection, he had no one off whom to bounce it. He’d never been alone from the moment he was _conceived_. And now he was.

Very often, he’d find himself standing in front of Leia’s door, closed and locked, and if he felt particularly courageous, he would knock.

“Leia? Would you like to try to fix up that droid? It hasn’t worked since the morning I turned it on, and I’m sure if we worked together, we could make get it up and running. Or if that seems like hard work, we could just play outside. I’m sure we’ll be allowed if C3PO minds us.”

He’d be invariably met with silence.

“We used to be buddies, what happened? I wish you’d tell me.”

And if he wasn’t met with silence, he was met with a sharp: “Go away, Luke.”

He grew and so did she, and every spring they shared another birthday cake while sharing little else. For the first few years, Luke would ask for multi-player games as gifts; but before long, he didn’t.

“Leia? Would you like to fix up that droid? It hasn’t worked since that morning I turned it on, and I’m sure with a bit of help from you, we could get it up and running. Or, you don’t have to do that, if you don’t want. We could play dejarik, or we could just watch a film. It gets a little lonely only talking to droids, just waiting for time to pass…”

Turned completely inwards, Leia threw herself into her education  - the only way she could really peer into the lives of people without having to really be part of their lives. She learned about the history of Naboo; about the Gungans; about the Empire. She learned about political systems around the galaxy. She searched through archives; through old books; ones written on paper. She kept her hands gloved under the guise of keeping the creped, yellowing papers safe, but in reality the gloves preserved so much more.

She’d catch herself, on rare occasions, moving a book from a shelf without touching it at all, and the act always gave her a sick feeling that rattled the stacks in the library and sent a splatter of frost across the hardcover.

Most of all, Leia had to think. She had to constantly have a complex narrative running through her head, one unrelated to her life. She had to have the subconscious voice of the written word playing in her head to keep her own thoughts out, for fear that she could hear _it._ Even when drifting off to sleep, when she was anything short of exhausted she insisted on playing audio recordings of various speeches. She knew that any prolonged silence could give her a window to hear disturbances in the Force.

Luke would see her, occasionally – from the window that lead to the garden, he could see her study. Yet he was rarely close enough to speak or to touch.

Only at 14, when they’d brushed shoulders in the hallway, had Luke realized he’d grown taller than his twin. Around that same time, his attempts to knock on her door tapered off.

In late summer of the twins’ sixteenth year, the Queen Padme Amidala and the King Consort Anakin were called away to a gathering at the imperial centre of Coruscant. Their departure – longer than any they’d ever taken both together – stirred an uneasiness in Leia. Her farewell hug was stiff. She was unaccustomed to touch and always warry of sending the sparks that plagued her mind into someone else. However uneasy Leia was, Luke was equally apprehensive - if only because his parents were his only beacon of affectionate human contact, and without them, his strained relationship with his sibling would be left in the open.

When the door of Anakin and Padme’s ship closed and they lifted from Naboo’s surface, Leia and Luke unceremoniously returned to the confines of the palace walls exchanging few words.

The glimpse of the ship barreling through the atmosphere was the last view either ever had of their parents. Both could have sworn that they’d known the exact minute their mother and father died – as if they’d felt their last breath, as though it had been snuffed from their own lungs. As if a tiny echo of the explosion that killed them rang in their ears.

The stifling silence they siblings had shared for half their lives took on a dense, crushing gravity at the funerary services. Even if one had finally elected to speak, the words would have been swallowed by the dark chasm that separated them. The royal house of Naboo did not dictate automatic nepotism: the leader’s seat was a seat taken electively. Nonetheless, though the orphans had no official claim to the throne, no one in the council would take it upon themselves to turn them out. So they stayed in the palace of which they’d once been princess and prince. Luke’s only reprieve continued to be the hazy sunsets and the company of a gold-plated protocol droid. And though his parents weren’t around to forbid him from leaving the palace, he seldom took initiative to leave the grounds.

On a foggy early-autumn day, Luke approached his sister’s door, something he’d not done in a few years.

“Leia? Please, I know you’re in there. Nobody’s seen you since the funeral. I’m trying to be strong, but we need each other. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know why you don’t like me, but it’s just us, now. What are we going to do?”

He pressed his back against the door, hoping that even if she hadn’t heard him, she could at least sense his presence.

Leia did hear him, but only through a fog of buzzing ears and jolts in her system. All the buttoned restraint that had kept her composed was splintered the moment she knew of her parents’ death. She’d collapsed on the floor and send a shockwave through the house. Her books were on the floor, her furniture overturned, and her windowpane shattered, all without a single movement from her body. The room was damp – the layer of ice her initial grief had spread melted as her shock grew into heartache.

She cried into the rug on the floor, unwilling to move to her bed. Her instincts told her to reach out to her brother, to share the grief; but she knew if she tried to open up, the shared feeling would leave them both too raw. So she let her tears soak a little spot into the rug, and the little spot would crust with ice, and melt again.

She could hear his voice, blunted by the thick door: “Leia, would you like to try to fix up that droid? It hasn’t worked since the morning I turned it on, and I’m sure if we worked together….”


	2. Chapter 2

When the raw wound of grief was replaced with a dull ache, Leia resumed her interest in the only thing that kept her mind contented: her studies. She’d doubled down on her dedication to political affairs, including current ones, and soon held intimate knowledge of the climate of Naboo. Though the reclusive nature of Leia was well-known to all who were aware of her, she’d eventually developed a capacity to interact with those of political value – however stiff and contrite the interactions were. Never one for small talk, or for pleasantries outside of work, she was still knowledgeable, and by the time she was eighteen, she was well-respected by the members of the royal house.

Whispers of her selection as the next monarch rustled throughout the kingdom and the palace. It was common for Naboo’s monarch to be a younger woman, though any age and either sex was an acceptable candidate. Leia’s mother had been a well-respected ruler, and the mysterious and wise nature of the young woman evoked much of what was loved about Padme when she was first elected.

Leia was reluctant, at first, when encouraged to run for the seat. She always kept an edge of terror that she could lose control of herself under stressful situations and harm someone – and what position could give more capacity to harm than an elected official? Yet she recalled that her father, a Force-sensitive man, had managed to control himself when faced with being husband to the Monarch, even as the hunger of darkness gnawed at something deep within him.

The election came, and the date was set: the coronation was to occur a few days after Leia’s nineteenth birthday.

Luke was resplendent. Even if the gap between he and his sister had never been bridged, the idea that she would soon be queen filled him with an enthusiasm he hadn’t felt since his parents’ death, and a cautious excitement that he hadn’t felt in even longer. At the very least, the two would no longer be of questionable status, wandering about the palace without any legitimate anchor for their future. He fantasized about the coronation. He fussed over house décor and the hiring of caterers, even if that wasn’t his job. He followed C3PO everywhere, almost as if Luke was his etiquette droid rather than C3PO being Luke’s. He bounded from room to room, a mental unrest filling him. If he didn’t fill his days with activity to the point of collapsing in bed exhausted by the end of it, then he’d stay in bed thinking.

On the final night before the ceremony, his quiet anticipation kept him awake, and he came upon a vague memory of another night where he hadn’t been able to sleep for lack of a quiet mind. He’d gotten a sudden urge to tinker with the white R2 unit, still dormant as it had been for eight years, but the edges of sleep dragged him down before he’d followed the thought to its conclusion.

 

* * *

 

“Master Luke,” said a refined voice from beyond the bedroom door. “Master Luke?”

Luke rolled over in bed. “Yeah?”

“I’m terribly sorry if I woke you, but”,

“Oh no, no, no,” Luke moaned, a hint of a yawn forming in his words, “I’ve been up for hours!”  He dragged curled fingers through his tousled puff of blond hair. “Uh…who is it?”

“It’s me, Master Luke.” replied the unmistakeable voice of his protocol droid “You must get ready! The gates will open soon.”

“What gates?”

“ _The_ gates, Master Luke. Your sister’s coronation?”

“My sister’s coronation.” Alertness jolted him. “It’s Coronation day!”

He hurried to his wardrobe and dressed in his ceremonial garb – a white tunic that billowed at the shoulders, with a banner of esoteric silver-threaded symbols running down his torso. He cinched an enameled grey belt around his waist and coarsely dragged a comb through his hair. He’d dressed so quickly that C3PO still stood by the door when he swung it open.

“It’s Coronation Day, Threepio!” he said, grabbing the gold droid by the shoulders. “Look at all these open windows! I haven’t seen so much light in here in years.”  Luke hurried down the hallway that led to the common areas, skirting beside a stout droid on wheels carrying a tray of dinner plates. C3PO shuffled behind the young man as quickly as his stiff-jointed legs could carry him. Luke stormed down the staircase and waited for the droid at the bottom.

“There will be real, warm, living bodies in here, today. It’s gonna be so strange, but so wonderful, to talk to people for a change.” he said. C3PO’s face did not allow for shifting expressions but Luke ate his words nonetheless – “Well, I mean, a droid like you counts for something, Threepio, but as a human it would be nice to, see a human, and…”  Luke trailed off, realizing the droid hadn’t taken any offence to his first comment.

Against C3PO’s recommendations, Luke ventured a foray into the ballroom and its large adjoining sitting room, where a buffet of after-dinner sweets was laid out on various ornate dishes. The sweets ranged from the familiar to the exotic, some taking on vibrant hues of violet and blue that didn’t occur in natural foodstuffs of Naboo. Luke’s home-planet was known for its rich cornucopia of plant produce, but it seemed to him that the most unique treats must originate from less-fertile lands. He snagged a lumpy beige sweet from the table.

“Look at this, I remember these!”

“Those are for the guests, Master Luke.”

Unheeding, Luke took a bite. “I remember… T’iil cake. That’s it. The Senator of Alderaan would bring these when he’d come. A friend of Mother’s.” he chuckled lightly, sending a dust of crumbs onto his clean white robes. “I wonder if he’ll be here, too? I haven’t seen him since they died. I don’t even know if he’s still Senator.”

The droid meticulously reoriented the platter on the table. “You won’t be seeing much of _anyone_ if you eat all the food!”

“Threepio, will ya’ relax? It’s one pastry! And there’s gotta be three hundred on this table! Three hundred of each kind, I guess that means there will be at least that many guests.” Still chewing his last bites of T’iil cake, Luke began a reverie. “Think of all the people, in their strange foreign garb, all speaking strange accents of Basic. I used to listen when I was a kid, and I didn’t understand, so many people would swallow their words or roll their Rs, I used to think my parents could speak a thousand languages, just like you can, Threepio. But they didn’t like it when I eavesdropped, even though I was just a curious kid. But it will be different, now, they’ll see that Luke Skywalker grew up, and that he’s a well-educated and cultured member of the Royal House of Naboo! And they’ll all line up to trade a word with me, because when they’ll try to talk to Leia, she won’t give them much.”

He rubbed his slightly crumby hands onto the front of his formal tunic, imperceptibly infuriating C3PO. “She’ll be the centre of attention, of course, but they’ll say, she has a twin! What about him? What’s he like?” he turned towards one of the many expansive portraits that decorated the wall – a painting of a former queen – and gestured at it as he spoke “And then a young princess or president’s daughter, some unhitched beauty from the Galactic Core will take notice of the new Queen’s sibling, and maybe we’ll get to know each other.” He snickered and hurried down the hallway, the droid once again shuffling behind. “And I hope she has red hair, or blue skin, or maybe a tail! Something I don’t get to see on Naboo. Something new!”

He stopped himself at the end of the hallway, near the window he used to creep out of when he was younger. “Do you think it’s crazy to dream of stuff like that?” C3PO stared at him blankly – the droid may be accustomed to etiquette and conversation, but such emotional questions usually alluded his programming. “Maybe,” Luke answered his own question, “But for the first time in forever, at least I’ve got a chance.”

 

* * *

 

Leia remained within her chambers in the moment the gates opened, for fear that the anxiety she’d kept carefully tucked away would be unleashed. Luke, on the other hand, was the first to step off the grounds. He marched through the parade grounds, already clogging with people, and strained to see the landing grounds in the distance. Off-world guests to Leia’s coronation were not the only ones to be part of the crowd, but Luke had so rarely gotten a glimpse into the city of Theed that even snack-sellers were worthy of some wonder.

Luke was daydreaming, staring into the clear water of an ornate fountain, when someone rammed him from behind. He tripped over the stony curb, wobbled off balance for an instant, and caught himself before splattering face first – or ceremonial outfit first – into the wet spray. He only grazed his chin on the basin’s edge.

“Hey! Watch where you’re-“ Luke jabbed, as he was met with a grimace from a female face.

“I’m so sorry!” the woman said, pleadingly stretching out her hands “Are you okay?”

“No, uh, yes, I’m fine, actually.” He said, brushing off his clothes and discretely checking for dirt on his white garb. “I just wasn’t watching where I was going. I’m not used to such a crowd.”

“Well that’s good,” she said, giving a bright smile that crinkled her freckled nose. She reached a hand to help him out, which he accepted with gratitude. The two stayed frozen and silent for an instant, grinning.

“Oh, Mara Jade, of Coruscant, by the way,” she said with a shallow curtsey.

“Luke Naberrie Skywalker, of the Royal House of Naboo,” he said, with a formal bow and proud hint of formality.

“Prince Luke! The son of Queen Padme Amidala! ” she said, bowing again with far greater urgency. As she descended into her bow, he rose from his, and in an instant, their heads were level, bunting together.

After two simultaneous groans of pain, Mara suggested with a hint of humour: “A handshake, then, if a bow won’t do it” Yet even a handshake seemed difficult to coordinate for the newly acquainted pair, who fumbled to select the proper hand to raise, and once clasped, the hands gripped limply and continued an up-and-down motion for uncomfortably long.

Luke lingered his regard on the woman’s splitting grin as his elbow mechanically raised and lowered, but shook his head as the corners of her mouth began to twitch.

“Oh, uh, this is awkward,” he said, letting go of her warm, slender hand, “Well, not that you’re awkward. I’m awkward, you’re gorgeous. Wait, what?”

“I’d like to formally apologize for hitting the brother of Naboo’s incumbent Queen, and also apologize for…everything that happened since.”

“Oh, no need,” Luke said, stepping back onto the main trail, “I mean, _I’m_ not the one who’s about to be monarch. If you’d hit my sister then, well, _eesh,_ there could be problems but luckily it’s…just me.”

“Just you, huh?”

Luke allowed himself a softened glance into her emerald eyes, which was quickly broken with a jolt to reality. “I need to get back to the palace. The coronation. I gotta go, I better go, I gotta,” he stumbled over the very same curb of the cobbled path that almost send him into the fountain moments earlier. Quickly regaining composure, he continued, “Yeah, I gotta go. See you soon?”

Mara offered just a gentle smile in response.

* * *

 

Leia stood before the throne in a billowing white gown, shoulders draped in a mantle of delicate rose-tinted white petals. Tulle-covered spines erupted from the shoulder section of her dress, fanning behind her head like a halo. Her hair, often kept in utilitarian tight-braided buns at home, was stacked high on her head in an elaborate wrapped braid. Beyond the ornate hairdo, her head was devoid of accessories, waiting for the placement of a ceremonial diadem. Her hands – shaking – were concealed in creamy silk gloves. The young woman, hardly five feet tall, looked far more imposing in her elegant gossamer.

Her dark eyes clung their gaze to the officiant, reading of her inaugural decree. She focused tightly on the words he spoke, and the cold edges of fear managed to stay far from her mind, though the tiny twitch in her fingers remained. He placed a narrow, decorated banner around her neck, and gently placed the diadem on her head.

The banner and the sword. She simply had to hold them in her hands as he recited the final words. Don’t freeze them solid. Don’t send them flying across the room. Don’t tune in to anyone else in the room. _Don’t feel it,_ she told herself. She hovered her hands over the two ceremonial items.

“Your highness,” the officiant said, “Your gloves?”

Gingerly, Leia tugged at the fingers of her gloves. She slipped one naked hand over the cool metal hilt of the engraved sword, and the other on the top tassel of the rigid banner. She turned to the crowd, refusing to breathe a sigh of relief, as the final words were uttered and the crowd rose to their feet.

“Queen Leia Aishalsa, nee Leia Naberrie Skywalker, of the Royal House of Naboo.”

As she heard her official title spoken, Leia could feel a buzz rising in her ears and a warmth in her hands. Quickly, she turned around, placing the sacred items on their cushion and pulling her gloves back over her hands. Only then could she allow herself a smile.

The crowd in the ballroom was as colourful as any crowd Luke or Leia had ever seen – not only humans of all shades and manners of dress, but many strange creatures that were variably humanoid. Cold-blooded, furry, spotted-skinned – all kinds filled the hall with various pitches and tones of Galactic Basic.

Luke starred at the crowd, pleased. The ceremony and dinner had gone without a flaw and the party was proceeding well. He’d even managed to avoid destroying his fresh, white tunic. He timidly took his place beside his sister near a high-backed chair at the edge of the room.

“Hello, you.” Her warm, raspy voice said. For an instant, Luke hardly recognized it.

“You, as in, me?” he said, shuffling closer to the Queen.

“Yes. How are you enjoying yourself?”

“I, well, I’m not sure how to answer that. A lot. It’s incredible. I met people from the planet Bespin. Did you know they live in the sky? Do you think our family comes from there, you know, sky-walker, those who walk in the sky?” Luke stopped himself, not wanting to ramble.

Leia threw him a loving smile, “I know of Bespin. In fact, I’ve already received a tentative matrimonial proposal from one of their Barons,” she said with an amused scoff.

“Well, will you do it?”

Small dimples appeared in Leia’s cheeks. “I haven’t even seen him yet!” she let the air out of her lungs, and continued on a different thread: “So. This is what a party looks like.”

“It’s…warmer than I’d expected.”

“It must be the heavily exothermic creatures over there.”

Luke laughed, unsure if the comment was meant to be a joke, but entertained by it nonetheless.

“You look wonderful, by the way,” Leia said, “You kept your garments clean, I see.”

Luke smiled. “You look beautiful. Beautifuller than me. Well, not _fuller_ than me. Well, yes, fuller than me, because that flower-cape is very voluminous, but,” he trailed off.

“Queen Aishalsa,” C3PO said, as he approached Leia. She felt an odd tingle at the sound of her Monarch Name spoken from the old droid. “May I present to you, Gungan Ambassador Jar Jar Binks.”

Leia measured up the lanky, amphibious-looking man before her. As a resident of Naboo, she’d been familiar with the Gungan race, though they spent little time in Theed and even less in the palace yards.  

“As yousa closest partner o’ Naboo, Meesa my’offer yousa first dance as Queen?” the odd, pink-skinned man bowed, ears flopping forwards.

Leia made a subtle Grimace, “Thank you, but I don’t dance. But my brother might.” She said, gesturing towards Luke. Luke made a frantic attempt to gesture a ‘no’ to his sister, but he quickly concealed his hands when the Gungan looked at him.

“No matter to Meesa – show’em dance o’da Otolla Gungans.” Luke reluctantly followed Jar-Jar to the glossy ballroom floor, and made a valiant attempt to mimic the bounding, erratic motions of the skinny-limbed creature, though he couldn’t come close to attaining as much spring in his step as Jar-Jar had. Jar-Jar hopped from one foot to the other, ear flaps waving wildly, pointed elbows thrashing out in all directions. A few braver members of the crowd imitated the unusual movements, but most backed away, preferring to continue their conversation a little closer to the punch bowl. Luke discretely made himself scarce, returning to wear his sister stood.

“You’re a little red in the face,” said Leia, still standing stiff and regal.

“Never dance with a Gungan if you don’t want an enormous rubbery ear to slap you in the face.” He said, huffing as he took his place beside her.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes. In fact, I’ve never been so good in ages.” He smiled at the crowd, staring in mixed awe and horror at Jar-Jar’s continued performance. “We should do this more often.”

“We should,” Leia said with a little smile. But a charge shivered up her spine, and she spoke again: “But we can’t.”

“Why not?” Luke said, “I know Mother and Father kept us in here, but you’re Queen now, Leia. You make the rules.”

“We just can’t.”

And just like that, Leia was a glacier again. Just when Luke thought that a weak bridge was being woven between them, the line was severed, and she was closed off. Unresponsive. Eyes black and unfeeling. Suddenly Luke felt as if he were ten again, and staring at her closed bedroom door.

“Excuse me,” he whispered, as he stepped away from her and pushed back into the crowd.

A particularly acrobatic move from Jar-Jar sent a shockwave through the group of people, and a stray elbow knocked Luke off-balance. He stumbled, and collided with someone. He turned to apologize, and was met with the same emerald eyes that had captivated him before.

“Hey again,” said the warm voice.

“Oh! Mara!” he cracked a grin.

“That display wasn’t really fit for a palace, is it?” she teased

“You think it’s bad to look at, try being part of it.”

“How about I show you a few moves that crazy-legs over there can’t?”

“Gladly.”

Their dancing gave way to talking, which gave way to laughing, and before long, they escaped the great hall, the sitting room, and the ballroom, to find a more private locale to chat. On the edge of the roof where Luke had spent many sunsets of his childhood, they stopped.

“So you have _how_ many siblings?” Luke said, between mouthfuls of puff-cake.

“Well, they aren’t really siblings, just people I was raised with. But I’ve known them so long they feel like siblings. There’s thirteen of us, total. Half of them pretended I was invisible for about two years.”

“That’s terrible!”

“They liked to tease me about my red hair, you know what they say about redheads.”

“No, I don’t, actually,” he said, reaching a tentative hand to a long red tendril, “But I don’t know why they’d make fun of it – I’ve never seen such beautiful hair. There aren’t many red-haired-people on Naboo.”

“It doesn’t matter if the trait is good or bad,” Mara said with a chuckle, “They’ll find something to mock. It’s what siblings, or friends who act like siblings, do.”

“It used to be like that with me and Leia,” Luke began, “Well, the fun-teasing, not the mean-teasing. We were best friends when we were young. I mean, how can you be closer to anyone than someone who was born to the same mother on the same day? I don’t know why it happened, but when we were seven or eight, she just started to push me away. She wasn’t always so cold. And I have this little guilty feeling, as if I should know what went wrong, but believe me, I’ve thought about it for years and I still don’t know.”

“I don’t know why she’d want to keep someone like you at arm’s length,” Mara soothed, “She doesn’t know what she’s missing.”

Luke could swear he felt the blood rush to his cheeks, and he quickly shook his head. “Okay, can I just say something crazy?”

“Go for it.”

“Well, all my life has been a series of shut doors and a nagging desire to get away. So much time was spent just _waiting,_ and it’s so lucky to me, that the first person I bump into when those gates finally opened was you.” He gesticulated wildly

“I was thinking the same thing, I mean, I’ve been living nothing but a purpose-driven life, and I took one chance to leave my planet and I found myself here, of all places in the galaxy.”

“I can’t remember the last time I felt so good – “ he choked out

“And I’m feeling like I’ve got a future-“ said she.

They breathed deeply and showed off timid smiles, as they continued their stroll throughout the palace grounds, eventually finding themselves on the narrow bridge that connected the palace to the cliffside watchtower.

“Life can be a lot more than what I lived, I think,” Luke murmured, watching the steep cliff’s waterfalls glimmer in the light of the moons “There are a lot more open doors.”

He took his eyes off the rocky cliff to focus on Mara’s face, rendered bluish in the gleam of one moon and backlit by another.

“Can I just say something crazy?” she asked, “Will you marry me?”

“Can I say something even crazier? Yes!”

* * *

 

Leia turned away from the Twi’lek who’d been conversing with her when she heard the quiet laughter of her brother. She hadn’t seen him in well over two hours, and she almost wanted to interrogate him on his whereabouts, though she knew it was within his rights to wander off.

The bottoms of Luke’s leggings had finally become a little dusty and grass-stained – he’d been meandering outside, for sure. He led a red-haired woman by the hand, speaking to her in hushed tones, and quieted when his eyes locked on Leia’s.

“Leia!” he said loudly, before correcting himself, “I mean, Queen Aishalsa,” – the red-haired woman with Luke lowered her head in a gesture of respect – “I’d like to present to you, Mara Jade of Coruscant.”

Leia nodded and produced a tight-lipped grin. Luke’s ‘your highness’ layered over Mara’s ‘your majesty’, and they stumbled over their words for a moment before deciding an order in which to speak. “Leia,” Luke began, “Mara and I would…like your blessing,” he slung an arm over the woman’s shoulder, “Of our marriage!”

Leia’s face became almost comically elastic, with an undercurrent of rage. “Excuse me, I don’t understand. What’s going on? When did you meet a Coruscanti?”

“This morning! Of course, we’ll need to work out some details, I’ll have to find a ship, and maybe learn to pilot, actually, because, well, wait, didn’t you say a lot of people live underground on Coruscant? Wait, or did you want to stay here? We’ll need a few days to plan the ceremony, but maybe we could keep the guests from the Coronation a few extra days…”

“Wait, no, no, no, nobody is flying to Coruscant, and nobody is getting married. Luke, can I talk to for a minute? Alone?”

“Whatever you have to say, you can say to us both.”

“Alright. You cannot marry a woman you just met.”

“You _can_ if it’s true love.”

“Luke,” she said, trying to be stern but sounding remarkably tender, “What do you know about true love? Your closest friend is an etiquette droid.”

“A lot more than you, I fathom,” Luke replied, “All you know is holograms and isolation. Don’t act like a couple years of rubbing elbows with the Naboo Elite makes you an expert in love.”

“I didn’t say I’m an expert, either. I – “ Leia paled at the lump that was forming in her throat. She’d kept it together so well all day, and the sudden tension threatened to unravel her. “You asked for my blessing, and my answer is no.” She began to move through the crowd.

Mara lightly touched Leia’s sleeve. “Queen Aishalsa, if I may-“

Leia pulled back. “No, you may not. I would like you to leave.”  She tried to keep her pace as even as possible as she approached the door, even if her instincts for danger told her to flee to her bedchamber.

“Leia, wait.” Luke chased her, reaching for her hand. As she recoiled from the touch, her glove slipped off.

“Give me my glove.” Leia said, in a restrained growl.

“No, Leia, please. Listen to me! I can’t live like this anymore!”

“I never said you couldn’t leave.” Leia’s brows furrowed; her eyes were black.

“No. Not until I understand. Not until you tell me why it’s been like this for _years._ ” Leia laboured towards the door. Her muscles ached to run, but she strode instead. The ringing in her ears grew; her skin flushed. Luke was still shouting. “Why do you shut me out? Why do you shut the whole galaxy out? What are you so _afraid_ of?”

“I said enough!” And with that, she shattered like an icy puddle; a wave of energy tore through the room and angry spikes of ice erupted from the floor. The crowd felt the breath torn from their lungs, not only from shock but from the sudden drop in moisture and change in temperature.

She blanched. Abject horror. And without a word, she fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leia's Queen name was inspired by a mix of Elsa and Elsa's name in Chinese, pronounced sort of like 'Aisha'. Writing Jar Jar dialogue is literally something I never thought I'd do, and hopefully will never need to do again. (Yes, that means the Duke of Weaseltown's role will be minimized in this story.)

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be satire at first, but then it got deep. This idea came so magically - I had a dream about Star Wars for some reason and when I woke up I was staring at my Frozen calendar and I was just like 'what a combo, eh'? So as weird as this idea is, I have to say it's coming along nicely...


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